1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to delivering voice messages or facsimiles over a telephone system.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventional telephone systems provide methods for callers to leave a voice message when the called party is not available to communicate with the caller. The voice messages are saved in a voice mailbox to be recalled by the called party at a later time.
When a group of telephone subscribers are associated in a special relationship such as a club or a business, it may be desired to leave a voice message to all the members of the group. Conventional voice mailbox systems require the sane voice message to be delivered individually to each member of the group by the caller, thus causing great inconvenience.
Techniques such as a group mailbox have been proposed. A group mailbox is associated with a group having a group ID and a list of telephone numbers. A voice message sent to the group mailbox identified by the group ID is delivered to the list of telephone numbers associated with the group mailbox.
The group voice mailbox technique described above requires a caller to remember the special group voice mailbox number and the group ID assigned to the group voice mailbox. Thus, two numbers must be remembered. In addition, current systems restrict message recipients to have voice mailboxes on the same systems as the group voice mailbox. Further, a voice message cannot be placed in the group mailbox directly but interaction with the service provider is required before the voice message can be left in the group mailbox. While the group mailbox technique described above reduces the amount of inconvenience of earlier systems, additional improvements are still needed.